Monday, April 21, 2008

Overloaded

Sunday was a day that overloaded me with stimuli. Started the day by heading up to the Swap Meet at the 151 Speedway near Columbus. Typical Swap folks and fare: LPs, military items, random motorcycle parts, pan flutes, yard art, interesting people…wandered around a bit, but didn’t really see or buy anything that interesting. Headed back to Madison, dropped the wife off at a BBQ, and met up with EO, ZR and Jeff from Revolution to caravan to Milwaukee for the Kraftwerk show. The weather yesterday was perfect, sunny and mild, with just enough of a breeze to feel nice.Made it to the city quickly, had some pizza, saw the new Sanchez Painting facility, rode in a casket elevator…had a few beers, and rolled thru Washington Park to the Rave.I’d never been to a show in the Eagle’s Ballroom, and wow, I was missing out. Great room, huge.Kraftwerk doesn’t need an opening act, and they took the stage at about 8:15 pm and got right down to the business of blowing minds. They opened with my personal favorite, “Man Machine”. They did their thing for about 2 hours, and played the songs people wanted to see. Their stage presence is impressive, and rarely have 8 bit computer graphics ever been so compelling.After the show, the 4 of us hopped on our bikes, and rolled towards Jason and Carrie’s. Mostly deserted streets awaited us. We made a stop for some greasy food at JJ’s, where EO and Jeff passed their $ through a bullet proof window…We pedaled the magical road that passes between the Miller Brewery and the Harley Davidson Factory, which makes a guy proud to be a ‘Merican!Back at the house, we bullshitted with Jonny Cycles who’d ridden down to Milwaukee from Madison, and watched the DVD of MASH. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll sum it up for you: guys doing stupid shit on fixed gear bikes in traffic. Lots of skids. I got tired and fell asleep during it.We got up this morning, five dudes all over the living room, and drank a bunch of coffee, and rolled back to Madison a couple of hours ago.I wouldn’t say I’m at my sharpest right now, but this is an interesting way to start a week…